4 Keys to Facebook Ad Targeting
To be honest, I always thought Facebook Ads were entirely too creepy and I never understood how they worked until I started to get into marketing. Then I had the “Aha” moment when I learned more about the nature of ad targeting. Now, I’m still a little confused how certain things arose into the ads after I just had a conversation about whatever topic appeared, maybe it was a lucky coincidence…mostly it wasn’t.
As I began churning out ads for TrackMaven, the creepy conundrum began solving itself as I steadily grasped Facebook ad targeting. With over 1 billion users and over 1 trillion page views a month, Facebook clearly has a huge profitability for advertisements; however, targeting these ads to the right potential customers is very important to your Facebook ad campaigns.
1. Figure out who your target customer is
Who are you trying to sell your product or service to? Who is buying your product now? Who has the purchasing power to buy your product? Do you have marketing personas?
These are all questions that can help you narrow down the customer you want to target on Facebook. You might have a huge customer base, so breaking each of the potential customers into specific categories can help organize your categories as well. For Facebook ad-targeting it’s easier to being with CPM (Cost per Thousand Impressions) because then you will have a higher chance of someone clicking through for a lead. Knowing who your target customers are helps also to increase the probability for a lead. Maybe these were all obvious factors, but laying out specifically who you are trying to target can cut down the spray and prey method for more qualified results. Knowing your audience will determine if you want to target males, females, relationship statuses, education, age etc.
2. Interests vs. Precise Interests
Once you figure out who your target customers are drumming up their interests and precise interests just got a lot easier. Interests on Facebook are denoted with a “#” and present a larger audience size. Precise interests are found below these and are tagged without the “#.” These help to narrow down your audience and determine who your ad will be projected towards.
I tend to stick with more Precise Interests because it helps to target positions that people hold and they can be very powerful if you know the exact audience you are looking to capture. For example, can use precise interests for places people shop, brands they like, etc. For example if you are marketing to executives maybe they are known to shop at Whole Foods or they only buy Rolex Watches — you can zero in on those precise interests for them. You want this number to be as big as possible, but also as specific as possible.
A friendly reminder, Facebook doesn’t recognize “of” in titles, so leaving those out will help figure out some precise interests.
Another category that falls into this second key are the connection targeting as well. Connections from page likes and friends of the connections are factors that affect the different targets. If you have a huge fan base of customers, their friends could be potential customers as well. However, this only works if you have a huge pool of page likes from your target customers.
3. Re-Targeting
Facebook Exchange launched out of beta last fall and it is a cookie-based ad targeting system that serves ads related to a user’s web browsing activity, in real time on Facebook. It uses demand-side platforms allowing for a user to use multiple ad/exchange accounts on one interface. Re-targeting ads allows for a more specific experience and results from that re-targeting indicated higher clickthrough rates and post-click conversion rates.
A Demand-Side platform may be a used after certain targets are figured out and is slightly more advanced; however, they provide real-time bidding, behavioral targeting, and more specifics for advertisers’ criteria and budget.
Some examples are:
Using the Facebook Exchange will level up your targeting!
4. Tons of copy
My mother, like many other mothers as well, always told me “Practice makes perfect.” Granted at the time, I wanted to rip my hair out when I heard that statement, but it reigns true even today. With Facebook ads you have that the previously mentioned targets, but don’t forget about the original ad copy. Not all of you pieces of written ad copy are going to jump off of the page and grab the potential customer’s click or they may quickly turn into a lead. However, it’s necessary to have tons of copy in order to test what works. Changing headlines, the actual ad text and the image can all be interchanged for better headlines, text and images. So, the pool of copy you have will have to be large in order for you to interchange what works and what doesn’t.
Even though knowing these keys to targeting is essential, I am no expert on this and I don’t think any marketer can full claim they know the entire formula for this ad scheme. The best advice I can give anyone attempting Facebook ads is to test, test, test, oh and test. You’ll find what targets work best for your company and always be sure to work it to it’s fullest.
Did I miss anything? Tweet me (@sabelharris), Maven will bark back at you (@TrackMavenApp), or you can always comment below!
Sabel Harris leads the marketing at TrackMaven. When she's not marketing, she's probably listening to some pop music or drinking too much coffee. (Funny thing, she does this while marketing too). Tweet or email her, unless, she's eating, she'll respond in record timing. See more of Sabel's posts
